


Don't Look

by TalesOfOnyxBats



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, FebuWhump2021, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Suicidal Thoughts, Trypophobia, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:42:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29664012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalesOfOnyxBats/pseuds/TalesOfOnyxBats
Summary: Before Regina casts her dark curse, a curse is put on her. One that gives inner evil a physical manifestation and mirrors onto her the pain she inflicts on others.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Don't Look

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of Febuwump? I’m so late in the game for this one tho lol.

_ Don’t look. _

_ Don’t look.  _

_ Don’t look.  _

It repeats in her mind. She repeats it to herself. She doesn’t want to look, she can’t bring herself to look because she knows what she will see and she knows that it will leave her queasy and dizzy and more hopeless than usual. 

She knows that she has done it to herself and that she probably deserves it. She is not a good woman. She is an evil woman. She knows this by now. It is quite deeply ingrained. She thinks that everyone will be satisfied to see her like this. 

To see her twisted and broken. To see a curse ravaging her, eating her from within; bridging the ugliness she feels within to the outside. 

The hate in her heart warps her unrecognizably. She doesn’t want to see it but she can’t ignore it either. Her hands are stiff, knotted and lacerated. She tucks them into her pockets so she doesn’t have to look at them. She would bury them in gloves if they hadn’t elongated. 

The transformation has been slow and agonizing. She doesn’t know the extent of it. She hasn’t brought herself to look yet. But she knows that she has horns, she can feel as much. Every inch that they extend. And they extend quite far. To grow new bones is much more tormenting than to break old ones. She thinks that she would rather break every single bone in her body than to let the horns grow another inch. They get in the way of sleeping comfortably, they get in the way of a lot of things. And her head aches and pounds. Under the weight of them she thinks that her neck might snap.

She thinks that she might be okay with that so long as it takes the pain away. 

She curls in on herself. Everything aches. Every single inch of her. She has forgotten what it feels like to not know pain. She has forgotten what it feels like to be comfortable and safe. 

She has no one but herself to blame. For antagonizing the wrong people. For filling herself far past the brim with loathing and rage. She has no one but herself to blame and so she thinks that she deserves the suffering she is getting. 

On one arm lumps begin to form, they pulsate and ache and occasionally they secrete a poisonous purple fluid. On the other she finds pockmarks and craters. That arm is never exposed. The sight is revolting. It makes her sick, queasy, nauseous. 

Her teeth ache too some sharpen, some elongate with her horns. They set her jaw at a bizarre and excruciating angle. She can’t close her mouth without drawing blood. Her eyes burn as well, she isn’t sure what they look like. She doesn’t want to know. She’d sooner claw them out then find out. 

And her hair. It falls out in clumps and with a burning sensation upon her scalp. This is suffering, true suffering. And she does it alone. Does it alone with the knowledge that she will always be isolated. She is a monster, and abomination inside and out. 

It is all the more reason to cast her curse. She can glamour herself a nice and pretty form--her old face, her old body--and she can finish the job. She will crush the heart of the thing she loves the most. Her body and soul will contort and distort hideously. But her curse will come by, it will steal the magic away and she will have relief. 

So long as she keeps it maintained, she will never suffer so thoroughly again. 

**.oOo.**

It was different in Storybrooke. But she could still feel it, she could always feel it. Though the magic in Storybrooke was potent enough to keep her form intact. She had expected to wake in her bed and find herself wholly relieved. It wasn’t so; she had woken up and touched her cheek. Had felt smooth and unblemished skin. And the mirror reflected as much. It showed her the face that she had always known. But she could still feel it; each lump, laceration, hole, and horn. The weight was still heavy. Heavier than ever. 

Heavier and more painful until she had become numb to it. 

Her curse is broken now. Broken and she can feel her body twisting back into the abomination it was meant to be. 

And she is terrified. 

Deep down she thinks that she had hoped that someone would see her, that someone would find her lovable. That someone would be there to help her break this affliction. She finds no such person. And her window of opportunity has come to pass. 

She steals away into her bedroom and waits for the magic to slam back in full. Likely she will end up sealing herself up in her vault. More likely she will mix herself up her own poisoned apple and give it a good bite. 

She would rather succumb to an eternal sleep than go back to the unique brand of suffering that has been tailored just for her. The burning already erupts over her arms. She should get to her vault. With a wave of her aching arms, she finds that  _ her  _ magic doesn’t work. Her heart sinks and she feels faint. She supposes that she can try to make it to her car but she can barely stand let alone make it down the hall, descend a flight of stairs, and across the length of her driveway. 

She collapses onto her mattress, ear against the pillow and bunched in on herself. 

**.oOo.**

Emma stuffs here hands into her pockets and exhales as she makes her way up to the former mayor’s porch. She doesn’t particularly fancy doing a wellness check on the Evil Queen, but someone has to do it. At the very least to make sure that she isn’t in the middle of formulating another scheme of sorts. 

She rings the bell twice. 

A third time. 

She exhales. For a moment she considers turning around and leaving. But an unanswered doorbell is a pretty poor sign. It might be that when she busts into the mansion she will find it vacant. She rather hopes that she does. 

She picks the lock and lets herself in. The house smells like Regina, of apples and lavish perfume. But there is something else mixed in. Something copper. Something sick. Emma cringes, she doesn’t like it at all. She hasn’t yet had the ‘pleasure’ of smelling a corpse and, God, does she hope that today won’t be the day. 

“Regina!” 

Her voice is thrown back at her as she wanders deeper into the mansion. It is mostly spotless, though a very fine layer of dust has begun to settle on the counter. The uneasy fluttering in her tummy grows. Either the house is empty or the woman in it is…

Emma puts her foot on the first step and calls out for Regina again. The woman doesn’t answer. She stands before the door and takes a deep breath. She inhales that scent, that ill odor. It is stronger. And yet she isn’t sure that it is the smell of death, she thinks that the smell of death would be overbearing. Absolutely gag inducing. 

“Regina?” She tries again.

“Leave me, Ms. Swan.” Her voice is hoarse. Some of the tension leaves Emma’s body. At least the woman isn’t dead. But she very well could be dying. 

“Are you okay?” It is a stupid question, of course she’s not okay. She doesn’t even sound okay. 

Her answer is as predictable as Emma would have thought, “I’m fine, Swan. Get out of my mansion.” 

But what can she do? Call the sheriff? “Regina, you don’t sound fine…” it is as much warning as she is going to get. 

“Swan, don’t you dare.” She snaps as soon as she hears the doorknob turn. It falls ajar. “Emma,  _ please _ .” 

Emma hesitates, swallows, thinks of turning around. “I just want to make sure that you’re okay.” She knows that the woman isn’t. She can hear it. She can sense it. She enters the room. Regina pulls the covers over her head.

“Don’t look, Emma.” She says very quietly. “Please don’t look at me, Emma.” 

She sounds so tired. So pained. 

“Stress isn’t pretty but don’t you think that you’re being a little dramatic?” She quirks a brow and musters a little chuckle.

Regina doesn’t see the humor in it. She never does, she definitely isn’t the joking sort. But she does laugh. And it isn’t a pleasant one. It is just as hoarse as her speech and twice as bitter. “You don’t understand, Swan.” 

“Then help me.”

She sees the woman shake her head under the covers. “I don’t want you to. I just want it to end. Leave the door open and let them come for me.”

“Who?”

“Do you think that I don’t know that the whole town wants me dead? They’re in luck; I do too.” 

Emma shifts uncomfortably. She should have anticipated that much too. Of course she isn’t taking the breaking of her curse well. She hasn’t even asked to see Henry. It dawns upon her that whatever this thing is...she doesn’t want Henry to see it either. “I don’t want you dead, Regina.” 

“I need to be. God, Emma, it hurts so much.”

“What hurts, Regina?”

She is silent for the longest time. And then she reaches one arm out from under the bed. She holds it up for Emma to see. Mostly it is pockmarked and full of holes. In other places it looks raw and scaly--quite literally scaly. She lets it drop, dangling off of the bed. Emma wonders if her whole body is in such a state. She musters up the courage to ask. 

“The same or similar.” She goes silent again. “Please end me, Emma. I can’t even move.” 

Emma imagines something like a sunburn amplified by ten. She imagines traumatic third degree burns. And then she makes note of the way Regina’s body is twisted. Even under the covers she can tell that the angles are wrong, contorted very agonizingly. 

“What happened to you?” Against her better judgement, she takes the woman’s hand.

Regina flinches but she doesn’t jerk away. She isn't’ sure that the woman can jerk away. “I cast my curse to escape a curse...among other things.” 

Emma pulls the blankets back before she can stop herself. Before she can even process what she is doing. Regina lays with her right cheek turned up. Emma can’t recognize her face at all. She has the eyes of a serpent. And there are growths, growths like toadstools or, perhaps, treebark. The erupt painfully from her skin. She grits her teeth, some pointed, some elongated, some broken…

“Do you understand why I  _ need  _ to die?” 

Emma very nearly nods. “I understand why you need help.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m the savior, I promised to help  _ everyone  _ get their happy endings. How do we fix this?”

She thinks that Regina is crying. “We don’t, Emma.  _ You  _ don’t. This can’t be fixed.”

“If there’s one thing I learned about curses, it’s that they can be broken. All of them. And I’ll find a way to break this one.”

“Why?” She husks. “Why would you want to? You hate me more than anyone else in this town. You should anyways.”

“I don’t hate you.” She replies. She certainly had prior to invading the woman’s home but that hatred has given way to pity and concern. To a nagging need to give the woman a chance. “Henry doesn’t hate you. He asked me to come check on you.” 

“He did?” Her voice cracks some. 

“Yeah, he did.” Emma replies. “So maybe if you hang in there and let me try to figure something out, I can talk Henry into stopping by.” 

“No, Emma.” She shakes her head. “He doesn’t need to see this.” She bunches more tightly in on herself and winces. 

“Then let me find out how to help you and you can see Henry after that.” 

“I can’t, Emma. I can’t do it anymore.” She is crying. Definitely crying.

It has been nearly two weeks since her curse has broken. That is quite a long time to be actively suffering this much. Emma thinks to squeeze her hand but that would probably only hurt her worse. Instead she rests a hand on her back. She can feel the jutting of her spine even through the blankets. “Please try. For Henry. I promise I can help you, I can ask Gold…”

“I already have. I asked him before I cast my curse.” 

“There’s got to be something…”

**.oOo.**

She keeps coming back. No matter how many times she tells her to leave, she keeps coming back. This isn’t out of the ordinary for Swan. In fact it is almost expected. But Regina finds that she doesn’t loath it anymore. More or less, she is growing used to the woman’s presence. She is beginning to think that she would be distraught without it. 

Emma takes a seat at the edge of her bed. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted for lunch so I made sandwiches.” 

“Sandwiches aren’t lunch food…”

“They are for Henry.”

“Yes, with a fruit, a bag of carrots, and maybe a cookie if he was well behaved that morning.”

“It’s PB&J.” Emma hands her the sandwich. 

She frowns to herself but she really can’t afford to be choosy. She hasn’t had much of an appetite anyhow. She takes a bite of the sandwich.

“I’ll make pasta for dinner. Does that sound good?”

“Well enough, Swan.” 

Emma smiles. “Great. I’ve just been a little busy today, but I didn’t want you to totally miss lunch.” 

She supposes that it is nice to know that Swan is thinking of her. That someone has at least a very basic care for her. She sticks to her word and comes back around dinnertime. It should make her happy. Regina isn’t sure why she feels so…

She can’t even place the feeling, but it isn’t joyful. She thinks that she almost feels guilty. Guilty for having made the woman’s life so difficult despite her being the exact sort of person who would go out of her way to help  _ everyone _ .

Her mind wanders back to the woman pulling her out of the fire. To setting her down and declaring, rather frustrated, that she would do it again. The fire is bigger this time. Bigger and raging and it has already burned to the bone. 

Emma hands her a plate of pasta. She isn’t hungry in the slightest but she clears it, Emma had gone through the trouble of making it for her. She sets the plate aside and fixes her gaze on the ceiling. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m still in so much pain that I can’t function properly.”

“And?” 

“What do you mean, ‘and’?”

“You’re even more upset than usual, I can tell.” 

She forces herself to roll onto her side. “I don’t know, Swan.” And that only adds another layer of distress. She finds herself tearry once again. Emma rests a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t shake her off this time. She finds that it hurts less, if only a little, to have a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

**.oOo.**

Relief creeps in, it takes its time in driving out the pain, but steadily it does. Emma rubs her back, and she does it so lightly, with such care that it doesn’t agitate the sores on her back. It is a small comfort, but a comfort no less. 

It is a comfort that is becoming routine. 

Emma makes a point of stopping by daily, to give her her meals at the very least. Sometimes she stays longer. Sometimes she spends the night. Those nights are the best nights. Those are the nights when she almost doesn’t feel pain anymore.

“Will you stay the night?” She asks. 

Emma nods. “I don’t have any plans. I’ll just go home and get my pajamas.” 

“You can borrow one of mine. You seemed rather fond of my shirt the last time you stole it.” 

Emma chuckles. “It was pretty comfy.” 

Regina nods. She pats the other side of her bed. “There’s room if you want to lay down.” 

Emma stretches her arms. “That would be fantastic, thanks!” She flops down. “I knew that helping you would come with perks eventually.” She gives one of those goofy, lopsided grins. 

It is a joke, she gathers. She tries for a laugh but she isn’t quite sure that she manages. They lay in silence for some time. There is a slight tickle in her tummy as she tries to muster up the courage to finally apologize to the woman for treating her so terribly before. She doesn't quite manage, what comes out instead is, “thank you, Emma.” She clears her throat. “For staying with me and…” she gestures to the empty plates. 

“Yeah, of course.” She smiles. “I told you that I’m going to give everyone a happy ending, including you. No matter how long that takes.”

Regina smiles. For the first time in so very long, she smiles. 

“I think that it’s working.” She takes Regina’s hand.

For the first time in so very long, she doesn’t feel a twitch or a twinge of pain. 


End file.
